Faroe Islands at the 2012 Summer Paralympics

The Faroe Islands, a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark,[1] first joined Paralympic competition at the 1984 Summer Paralympics.[2] The Faroe Islands do not compete in the Olympic Games under their own flag, rather Faroese competitors at the Olympics must compete in the Danish team.[3] The Islands have participated in every Summer Paralympics since then, but have never participated in the Winter Paralympics.[2] All 13 of the Faroe Islands' medals have been in the sport of swimming.[4] The 2012 Summer Paralympics were held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 with a total of 4,237 athletes representing 164 National Paralympic Committees taking part.[5] The Faroese delegation to London consisted of a single swimmer, Ragnvaldur Jensen.[6] He was the country's flag-bearer during the Games' opening ceremony.[7]

Ragnvaldur Jensen was 22 years old at the time of the London Paralympics, and was classified as SB14.[8][9] SB14 is described by the International Paralympic Committee as "S14 swimmers have an intellectual impairment, which typically leads to the athletes having difficulties with regards to pattern recognition, sequencing, and memory, or having a slower reaction time, which impact on sport performance in general. Moreover, S14 swimmers show a higher number of strokes relative to their speed than able-bodied elite swimmers."[10] On 6 September, he was drawn into heat one of the men's 100 meter breaststroke SB14, finishing with a time of 1 minute and 13.92 seconds, which put him in seventh place out of eight swimmers in his heat. Only the top eight between both heats could advance to the finals, and Jensen was eliminated from the competition.[11] Yasuhiro Tanaka of Japan eventually won the gold medal, with Artem Pavlenko of Russia taking silver and the bronze went to Marc Evers of the Netherlands.[11]

• Faroe Islands at the Paralympics